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King of Swords 4-39

“Many great men ask me why I keep such numerous, rare, and expensive flowers in my palace. This is to warn me of the habits of weak kings. A king should always be attentive to his flowers, and keep a great number of them. If he does not pay his servants enough to take care of them, they will pluck some in secret, and sell them in the market. If his servants do not care enough for their master or their service, they will willfully neglect his flowers, and they will die. If he forces his servants to water the flowers out of fear, the delicate flowers will be overwatered and they will die. If he keeps lavish flowers, he must educate his servants sufficiently to take care of them, or they will die. A king with wilted flowers, or no flowers at all is not worth trusting. This is the first measure I take of my rival lords.”

No, it hasnt been published yet back here in the early Cretaceous period. Heck, Africa haven’t even split from South America, but we’ve got some quite nice ferns, and a pretty hefty broad band connection.

Well yes, we actually just had these pretty rad amborellas and figs moving into the neighbourhood and the flying insects are going absolutely crazy. It’s like a whole new ecological niche. Some of the old farts say that they’re the harbingers of the endtimes, but I have absolutely no idea what they are on about, crazy old dinosaurs

I feel like what Allison is going through is a lack of humanity, spending most of one’s time learning from other species is not entirely good for one’s health.

I once spent 5 years training with a gold devil, sure my fists could go through rock by the time we parted ways but I had to battle compulsive kleptomania and some serious urges to backstab (literally and figuratively) my friends and allies for months afterwards.

Still, old Ozgun, for all his murderous mischief is always going to be dear to me.

I suspect Murder the gods and topple their thrones to be the next most likely suspect. One of the seven would be a good choice but they are all afraid to upset the balance leaving the mercenaries free to do as they will.

It had been many ages of travel before I myself had settled with the partner I share children with.
Allison too after this year has developed her tastes and opened herself up to the oneness of the world. It can be shaking when you come from a land that traditionally upholds so many narrow minds.
I will one day return to my children and the Partner with which I share them.

Those things are but trappings, ephemeral things to be cast off or clung to as desired. That feeling is real and needs no instrumentation to be meaningful. You are no less an actor for lack of a bauble. Royalty is easily attained by those who do not seek it.

It seems to me that it would have been more graceful to just transition directly from “lessons with cio, to this scene”. Sure you miss the beat about magic, but overall I think it works better tonally. Food for thought at the very least.

Ah, angelic flame. So appreciative of pattern, and yet so incapable of registering it in process.

You have seen the Creation of Solomon David, and the way in which it has ensnared him. Witness now the Rising King, and her creation, and the way in which she risks being ensnared.

Recall his anxious monologue on the subject of the desire to seek Royalty, the desire he denies, for the sake of what he has made. And behold the Rising King, who shall face the seven-headed beast, and overcome it, and speaks of feeling the same pull.

That one of its faces is the Beast With Two Backs, well. As the Emerald Physician once so memorably said, “it do be like that sometimes.”

I think your suggestion would work, but the exchange between Allison and Cio just before this page is a fairly significant character point.

Allison has gone from being an unsure, awkward, nervous girl who was bowing to social pressure with her sexuality (page 1) to a woman who is confident and at ease in her new home, at ease with herself, and who has taken control of her own sexuality, on her terms.

And Cio – a freaking devil – has gone from taking whatever she wants as Yabalochoath to waiting until her partner not just consents, but *requests*.

Skip the previous page, and we miss all that. It’s only distantly implied in the not-a-training montage, and given how we meet Allison’s character on page 1, not getting that part of her character arc is a disservice.

The story would, most definitely, work without it. It’s much better with it.

Actualy, this line already appeared in comic – it was said by Big Goddamn Idiot Bad Man, back there in the vault. “We devils have one rule, me lovely… Do as thou wilt” (c) So Crowley is here for a long time.

So… a lot of people in the comments seem to think this relationship came out of nowhere. That it wasn’t built up over time. These people are incorrect. They are of course welcome to their opinions on whether or not it was built well, but it was built.

There is a lot of evidence for this, but most of it can be summed up by Seeker of Thrones 9-114 (k6bd/comic/seeker-of-thrones-9-114/)

The book Allison is holding is Cio’s fanfiction. Cio threw the book away when she agreed to help Allison rob Yre. Allison kept it. That’s so straightforward it’s almost a trope: Allison loves Cio, at the very least as a friend. And Cio’s love for Allison was made obvious when she agreed to help Allison rob Yre. (It was obvious before that, but that’s probably the most concrete example.)

At Yre, Allison and Cio fell out because Allison put her quest over Cio’s desire to escape her old ways. This falling out culminated in the events of the linked page. Again, this is so straightforward it’s almost a trope: after trying to deny their feelings for each other, and realizing just how awful things are without each other, they both finally open up to each other.

Allison isn’t straight, as was made pretty clear in the first few pages, when she showed absolutely zero desire to have sex with her boyfriend. Allison being the self-repressive basket case she is, she never admitted even to herself that she might be queer. Her moment with Cio at Yre finally cracked that wall. Allison tried a few times to patch the wall back together (see previous statement, re: basketcase), but as they left Yre, Allison finally let herself feel what she was feeling, and asked Cio out on a date.

This relationship has been built, brick by brick, over the course of almost this entire comic. This comic has a lot going on, so it’s entirely possible to miss stuff like that. Heck, I certainly missed it my first readthrough. But it’s absolutely there.

Also, you two need bath robes. I, too, used to walk about in front of upper floor windows scarcely clad until a passing stranger on the street below whooped at me, making me realize I wasn’t as…hidden…as I felt I was. Made me wonder how many other people I had given a show over the years.

I suppose I can take solace in the fact that it was a “woo!” and not a “yuck!”.

To be fair, most of the people she’d be giving a show probably aren’t human and if anyone ever made it an issue, well … Do you want to pick a fight with the devil or the rising king, because you’re about to get both.

I feel the same, Allisonr. My blood is different, my heart is changed, my skin begins to crack, and I don’t even have a home anymore. Just an elevator where I steal things. Were it not for my body’s inhuman tolerance for metals and the abundance of bite-sized metal chunks in the elevator, I would be long dead.

I too feel some small measure of comfort from my situation. My entire life has been saturated with limitless wealth. The moment of my birth, one million lotteries were won. But now that I am outside of the realm of fortune, I can see truly what my hoard truly amounted to, compared to the average breathing thing.

It wasn’t enough. And now that I know true hunger, I fear that even if I get it all back, it never will be enough.

In the face of adversity you forsake the way of wrath and trod the path of insight. You are now more than you were. More yet awaits you this way. But beware this path of want lest you too follow the example of YISUN’s favorite student and seek to understand the hidden name of god before you are ready.

AL-YISUN has undergone many changes in brief times, and even years are not enough to understand the depths of one’s own psyche. as stated by others, unsettled feelings are to be expected when many powerful beings quest for one’s blood.

I really can’t figure out what Cio’s ‘skin’ is supposed to be like. At first I thought I was looking at her clothes, something like an armored bodysuit made out of discarded shells. Now she looks almost insectile, with rubbery, flexible skin showing between the plates at the joints. Does she have an almost-shell, flexible, mottled and with little spikes and bone deposits?

Given form by the will of men. The devils look like that because, on some level, that is how we believe they ought to look. They reflect the mask and names we give them. May the gods help our sick and twisted race.

Devils seem fairly casual about form and structure, I imagine that much as she can gain about five feet of height and considerable mass simply by being blown up and peeved about it, her skin likely changes in accordance with her moods and the moment. Over the course of the story It seems to me the color and texture of her skin has changed in subtle and a few alarmingly unsubtle ways.

“Do as thou wilt”. It reminds me of the inscription on the back of the Auryn, the amulet in Michael Ende’s Neverending Story. Tu Was Du Willst.

The story is about a boy who travels to a fantasy world and slowly realizes he loses his identity there, much like Allison’s dilemma in this comic page.

The instruction to do what you want can be interpreted as “go ahead, have fun and do whatever you want,” but it can also be taken to mean responsibility: make that which you find truly important, reality.

IT SEEMS THE LITTLE DEVIL HAS, FOR ALL HER HARD-WON WISDOM, YET TO UNDERSTAND P U R P O S E, AND THE LONGING ALL THE CHILDREN OF CREATION LESS INUNDATED WITH THE BLACK FLAME FEEL FOR IT.
IT IS PURPOSE THAT CREATED US, PURPOSE THAT PULLS US, THAT GUIDES US, THAT DRIVES US. IT IS THE REASON THAT SENDS ME OUT TO RESTPRE THE L A W, ONCE AS A KNIGHT OF ROOTS AND NOW AS A KNIGHT OF THORNS. AND IT IS THE BANE OF MORTAL HUMANS WHEN THEY LACK IT.
AND THE RISING KING, FOR ALL HER NEW STRENGTH, IS LACKING IN PURPOSE.

Last panel reminded me: “You know, this metaphoric stuff… it realy hurts” (c) Alan Moore, “Promethea”. I wonder whether Abbadon is familiar with this masterpice. It also has quite a bunch of Crowley references, by the way.

Au Vam has an interesting take on things, but I’m not sure I agree with him.

First, it seems like he spends a lot of time, money, and energy taking care of flowers than add nothing to his city, except to promote their owners sense of vanity. I’d rather focus on the farmers, merchants, and soldiers, or you’ll be watering your garden right up until the moment an enemy breaks down your door or your citizens revolt.

Second, it seems like waving a big flag around advertising what kind of person you are. Frankly, I’d rather than my enemies live in doubt, so they can’t attempt to plan around my personality. Allies too, in fact, since you can never be certain when one will become the other.

May I be so bold as to suggest you try a fine mask. They hide everything from your enemies except that you are the type of person who wears a mask, and are much less expensive than farmers, merchants, soldiers, or even flowers.

A frequent user of the elevator I steal from, a consecrate accountant of the Anointed Order, kicks me into the corner when he sees me, and so I treat him with contempt. That is, he did until recently. One day he had a change of heart, and instead of kicking me, he shared his oil-bread with me. As we talked he revealed to me that he had been observing my contempt for him, and determined that my level of contempt was perfect for the ranks of the consecrate accountants. Not quite the Bank of the Grand Dragon, but it would be a decent vehicle back into the sphere of the wealthy and powerful.

However, as I thanked him for considering me for the position, I had become too thankful, a trait that was forbidden in the Anointed Order, and so he carved the logo of the local Anointed chapter into my marble-flesh. He no longer uses my elevator. I have lost a significant portion of my theft income.

“People in this World look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment.

In the Way of Strategy also, those who study as warriors think that whatever they cannot understand in their craft is the void. This is not the true void.

To attain the way of Strategy as a warrior you must study fully other martial arts and not deviate even a little from the Way of the warrior. With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the two fold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the two fold gaze perception and sight.

When your spirit is not the least bit clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.”

As someone who has undergone a similar transformation (which is to say, moved to a foreign land and got into a shape other than a bag of garbage left in a corner) and has had said transformation bring on some kind of identity crisis, man, panel 6 is the biggest fucking mood right now.

Considering that Zaid is under Bigbeards tutelage and probably being groomed to fight in that yearly tournament. I imagine we might see Zaid as a foil to Allison at least, if not Allison using magic and Burning Fingers to fight a Ki Rata trained Zaid.